batteries

[la_morris]

The car battery on my Tundra died - probably because I left it too long without driving it. I've replaced it. What is the effect of a dead battery on the two deep cycle batteries in my Fleet? How should I be protecting my batteries if I'm not using the truck for several weeks? All things electrical are mysterious to me. Simple and clear answers, please, if possible. Thank you.

 

[Vic Harder]

Stock Fleet with factory batteries and such? No worries. It has a battery separator to deal with exactly this scenario.

 

[JaSAn]

Lead acid batteries will self-discharge at ~5% per month. So if you are leaving a battery sit for any length of time it is prudent to put them on a battery maintainer. Solar keeps my house batteries charged.

jim

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

As Vic mentioned, the battery separator will keep the camper batteries from discharging. I do make it a practice to plug morph (Damn auto correct) in the camper in every few weeks or so when the camper is off the truck.

If your truck is goofing going to sit for long periods, I’d pull the ground terminal off to remove any parasitic load like the clock, security, etc.. Or, just drive it for a few hours every month. The maintainer mentioned above is a great idea as well.

 

[ntsqd]

Before we got solar I connected a wall-wort type smart battery maintainer to the battery and left it plugged in inside the camper. Then when the camper was going to sit for very long all I had to do was run an extension cord to the camper and plug it in.

 

[Old Crow]

The car battery on my Tundra died - probably because I left it too long without driving it. I've replaced it. What is the effect of a dead battery on the two deep cycle batteries in my Fleet? How should I be protecting my batteries if I'm not using the truck for several weeks? All things electrical are mysterious to me. Simple and clear answers, please, if possible. Thank you.

Are you currently able to charge your Fleet's batteries from an electrical outlet at a campground?

Also- is there an electrical outlet within reach of your truck's parking spot? (if not, the solution would have to be a solar one and that's a different set of challenges)

 

[Vic Harder]

I think the OP question is about his truck battery, and isolation from the camper batteries. Are we still on topic?

 

[PaulT]

+1 on OP.
I replaced my 2010 Tundra flooded lead acid OEM truck battery with an AGM battery after 7 years. I thought that was good life for an OEM battery. I wanted AGM because I noticed that when I hooked up my NOCO G7200 to the truck battery, the camper battery separator would click after a short time connecting the camper batteries also. Having the same charging protocol for both seemed a good idea.
The reason that I put the smart charger on the truck battery was to ensure it would be fully charged periodically (about once or twice/month).

When I replaced the OEM battery, I was advised by the battery vendor to hook up another 12v battery to the truck before disconnecting the OEM battery because the various computers, clocks, etc are a constant draw on the truck battery. All this text was to show the importance of some kind of battery maintainer on the truck battery.

With the Blue Sea ML-ACR and camper solar power, the Blue Sea should do that truck battery charge maintenance for you. Although that brings up a caveat that you should carefully check voltages under the hood before working on truck electrical items. Disconnecting just the truck battery may not remove power from the other circuits.

Paul.

 

[la_morris]

Thanks for all the replies. Good to know I have not ruined the camper batteries. Guess I need to learn something about battery maintainers now.

 

[Wallowa]

Thanks for all the replies. Good to know I have not ruined the camper batteries. Guess I need to learn something about battery maintainers now.

My '05 Tundra and all my vehicles including motorcycles are connected to my Battery Tender charge maintenance units. All these vehicles are inside a heated shop. '16 Hawk [permanently on the Tundra] has 110 to IOTA IQ4 to keep the two AGM batteries charged


I do recommend these units..

http://products.batterytender.com/Chargers/

 

[billharr]

My Tundra battery died last month also. My camper Batteries have 250w's of solar to keep them charged. Separator keeps the solar from charging the truck battery. I went old school on my separator after I had my camper batteries drop low enough one time where it would not reconnect. I added a switch to bypass my separator when my truck is parked and I am not camping. See attached picture. Keep all three batteries up.